The team’s new head
coach took over a dismal squad from last year and appears on track to
deliver on his promise when hired: the first-ever playoff spot for the
city’s Major League Soccer team.

But it’s not just
that Porter has overcome low expectations from past seasons (the
Timbers, two-thirds of the way through their schedule, have already
surpassed the performance of last year’s team). It’s that Porter has
made waves in MLS with a high-possession, fast-attacking style of
soccer.

The Timbers are
ranked fourth out of 19 teams based on points per game. (Teams get three
points for a win, one for a tie, and zero for a loss.)

But despite their ranking, the Timbers’ playoff spot is far from secured.

That’s because MLS is
seeing one of its most competitive seasons in years. The league’s top
10 teams are separated by just five points. And the Timbers are the
equivalent of just one game away of falling out of playoff eligibility,
and nine of their remaining 12 games are against teams fighting for the
same postseason slots as Portland.

In order to help
break down the Timbers’ playoff chances, we’ve put together a list of
three things the Timbers need to continue doing well—and the three
things that haunt their playoff hopes.

The meltdowns of the Timbers’ past often came when the team gave up late-game goals.

Not this year.The
Timbers will need to keep up their tenacious attitude throughout the
remaining matches. And much of this new resolve comes from the Timbers’
captain, midfielder Will Johnson.

Johnson came to
Portland this year from Real Salt Lake, and the fierce, physical style
and relentless play (making him unpopular here before this season) has
paid off for the Timbers.

“[Will] demands a lot
from himself and from his teammates,” says Bob Kellett of the podcast 5
Minutes to Kickoff. “We’ve seen throughout the season that when the
team is facing adversity he has an ability to step up his game and bring
the other players to his level.”

Porter has proven to have a keen eye for positioning players in unexpected ways and recognizing talents that have been overlooked.

Timbers veteran and
midfielder Jack Jewsbury had been talked down a bit last season by
interim coach Gavin Wilkinson, and he was not a sure thing to return.

But Porter has shifted Jewsbury to the back line, where his experience and coolheaded play have helped fix a leaky defense.

An even better
example is Rodney Wallace, a former defender and infrequent starter who
had an uneven performance the past two years. Porter moved Wallace to
left wing, where he’s scored four goals and made five assists.

“Even Porter was
unsure of where to put Wallace at the start of the year,” says William
Conwell of Stumptown Footy. “But once the spot for Wallace was found, he
grabbed hold of it and has not let go.”

Porter must keep finding players adept at different playing styles, especially as he continues to make changes on the back line.

Last season, Portland fans howled when the team
swapped goalkeepers in a trade with the Montreal Impact. The Timbers’
keeper, Troy Perkins, seemed one of the few players who performed well
last season.

And trading him for
Impact goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts, whose performance had been uneven
and who faced injuries last year, didn’t seem to make much sense.

Fast forward to today. Ricketts, the Jamaican national player, is a revelation.

When the Timbers’
defense rapidly deteriorated due to injuries—particularly those to
Mikael Silvestre and David Horst—Ricketts was the difference, keeping
the Timbers in the game when the back line looked beaten down.

Ricketts
is in essentially a tie as the top-ranked goalkeeper in the league for
goals scored against him. (Real Salt Lake’s Nick Rimando has a .01
goals-against advantage.) Ricketts is tied for No. 1 in the league for
shutouts (nine).

His speed and agility
seem to exceed a keeper of his size, and thanks to his key blocks, fans
nationwide have eight times voted in Ricketts for the MLS Save of the Week
Award.

The Timbers’ weaknesses, such as they are, don’t look that large compared to the fiascoes of last season. But they do exist.

The team has compiled two remarkable stats this season. First, the Timbers have lost the fewest matches—three—of any MLS team.

From March to July,
the Timbers had a remarkable 15-game unbeaten streak. Any team with that
kind of record should be running the board, not facing an uncertain
playoff picture.

But seven of the
games in that streak were draws. Yes, the one point certainly helps. But
Portland had more ties than any team in the league, and conversely the
fewest victories of any team now in playoff contention.

While that helps the
team’s standing (soccer is one of the few sports in which a team is
rewarded for a tie), it’s also created a middling sense of the team’s
ability to grab wins when needed. If only three of those ties had been
wins, the Timbers would be the top team in the league.

The Timbers are also starting to show an inability to finish off great chances. They’ve already scored 32 goals, nearly as many as they scored all of last season (and there are 12 games left in this one).

Credit the quick
delivery and near magical ball control of attacking midfielder Diego
Valeri, a centerpiece in Porter’s system of fast, frequent passes, who
has created some truly awe-inspiring setups.

Still, despite these
amazing chances, the Timbers’ attacking forwards seem to struggle to get
them consistently into the back of the net.

The Timbers’ 2-1 road
loss to the San Jose Earthquakes had one such game-defining moment.
Valeri flicked the ball to Will Johnson, who went one-on-one with
Earthquakes keeper Jon Busch. Johnson fired—straight into Busch’s arms.

“The games that the
Timbers have lost this season have not been a result of a lack of
scoring opportunities but rather an inability to convert their
opportunities,” says Kellett of 5 Minutes to Kickoff. “[The team] will
need more production from its forwards, and hope that the goal-scoring
committee can convert its chances when they arise.”

The biggest challenge: The secrets behind the team’s success are out.

The coach’s brand of
play—nicknamed “Porterball,” a moniker Porter himself doesn’t care
for—runs counter to the typical MLS style of long balls and
counterattacks. (Long balls involve players punching the ball up the
field hoping it lands somewhere useful. Counterattacking is when one
side endures long stretches of possession by the other team with hopes
of catching the opponent flatfooted for a breakaway—often with long
balls.)

In the season’s first half, the Timbers’ new style confounded a lot of teams that couldn’t figure out how to adapt to it.

But everyone in MLS
has taken a long look at Porterball, and some teams have cracked the
code. They include two teams that have beaten Portland—San Jose and
Columbus—and, most recently, the Vancouver Whitecaps, who got out of
Jeld-Wen Field on Aug. 3 with a 1-1 tie.

While creative plays
from Valeri are now the norm, the Whitecaps seemed to have no problem
shutting him down in the center, where he sets off the short-pass
barrage that’s key to Porter’s strategy. (Valeri did get the Timbers’
lone assist, on a long cross to Ryan Johnson.) Vancouver seemed to
anticipate Portland’s moves and—along with a chippy, rough response in a
game choked with fouls—disrupted the Timbers’ momentum.

If the Timbers can’t
adjust and adapt Porterball, they could stall in the home stretch—the
part of the season, as Porter recently said, that separates winners
from losers.

"In the low usage areas, we found that our vehicles sit idle four times longer, ultimately affecting overall vehicle availability for the Portland membership base, as well as parking for the Portland community."

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